Part 7 (1/2)

The glory from his gray hairs gone Forevermore!

Revile him not,--the Tempter hath A snare for all; And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath, Befit his fall!

Oh, dumb be pa.s.sion's stormy rage, When he who might Have lighted up and led his age, Falls back in night.

Scorn! would the angels laugh, to mark A bright soul driven, Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark, From hope and heaven!

Let not the land once proud of him Insult him now, Nor brand with deeper shame his dim, Dishonored brow.

But let its humbled sons, instead, From sea to lake, A long lament, as for the dead, In sadness make.

Of all we loved and honored, naught Save power remains,-- A fallen angel's pride of thought, Still strong in chains.

All else is gone; from those great eyes The soul has fled: When faith is lost, when honor dies.

The man is dead!

Then, pay the reverence of old days To his dead fame; Walk backward, with averted gaze, And hide the shame!

J.G. WHITTIER.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert.

Southward with fleet of ice Sailed the corsair Death; Wild and fast blew the blast, And the east-wind was his breath.

His lordly s.h.i.+ps of ice Glisten in the sun; On each side, like pennons wide, Flas.h.i.+ng crystal streamlets run.

His sails of white sea-mist Dripped with silver rain; But where he pa.s.sed there were cast Leaden shadows o'er the main.

Eastward from Campobello Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed; Three days or more seaward he bore, Then, alas! the land-wind failed.

Alas! the land-wind failed, And ice-cold grew the night; And nevermore, on sea or sh.o.r.e, Should Sir Humphrey see the light.

He sat upon the deck, The Book was in his hand; ”Do not fear! Heaven is as near,”

He said, ”by water as by land!”

In the first watch of the night, Without a signal's sound, Out of the sea, mysteriously, The fleet of Death rose all around.

The moon and the evening star Were hanging in the shrouds; Every mast, as it pa.s.sed, Seemed to rake the pa.s.sing clouds.

They grappled with their prize, At midnight black and cold!

As of a rock was the shock; Heavily the ground-swell rolled.

Southward through day and dark, They drift in close embrace, With mist and rain, o'er the open main; Yet there seems no change of place.